A few days ago I spent £2.49 on that book up there ... Eric Hosking's " An Eye for a Bird." And the first chapter I read was the one about Hilbre ... or Hilbre Island if you aren't familiar with it. As a teenager I went there many times, and managed to avoid getting stuck in the mud, falling over on the slippy rocks, freezing half to death,and especially drastic, reading the tide tables wrongly and drowning. I wrote a jolly thing all about it ...here .. 398-hilbre-100-ways-to-read-your-tide-table-wrongly.html Eric H. writes about it dramatically in the book ... As may be imagined, the water sweeps in at a dangerous pace .... 10 m.p.h. at times ..and men, women and children have been drowned when caught in the landward-rushing seas. Here lay the scene of Charles Kingsley's poem " The Sands of Dee " where Mary went to " call the cattle home." The western tide crept up along the sand, And o'er and o'er the sand, And round and round the sand, As far as eye could see. The rolling mist came down and hid the land: And never home came she. .... But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home, Across the sands of Dee. I'll have a try at getting The Significant Otter to take photographs of the wonderfully action-packed map of Hilbre and various occupants and visitors, including a youngish Prince Philip on the Little Eye, Roger Tory Peterson doing a painting etc. I really must go there again before I drop down dead or perish in torrential rain just like wot I've just said. I'll brave the tide and wind and sludge I'll slip and slide Or hardly budge with feet so cold and hands so numb and me, so old my end has come. ..which would be a fitting end for me, and I'm sure the Significant Otter would be quite pleased to get me out of the way. The next chapter is about Minsmere ..... another of my favourite spots. In the book, he goes all over the place ... Holland, Finland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Jordan, Pakistan, Africa ... and much more. Anyway, Hilbre-wise, I've always managed to get back. Mind you, I've been to Lithuania .... and I got back from there as well ...
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AuthorThat's the author up there ... I was young and sprightly then. Archives
October 2022
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